Work Text:
001.
A new universe.
That's what Slick keeps telling you: "We started over, kid, you just weren't awake to see it."
A brand new universe, and everyone you've ever known is dead.
"Why?" you say slowly, hands shaking violently as you stare down at them, like staring could make them grow old and wrinkled, like they should be, maybe disappear completely. A new universe. You haven't changed a bit. "Why did we have to start over? Why couldn't we--" And suddenly you're angry, so goddamn angry, because your whole world, your whole life got erased, thrown in the fucking garbage, and you were sleeping. You were sleeping, and all your friends are dead.
Hands balled into fists, fingernails digging into your palms, you shut your eyes as tight as you can, hold in all your screaming. You can't do this right now. You can't. Slick is looking at you with his one good eye and you know he's judging you, you know it, so you take a deep breath, unball your fists, look him straight in the eye.
"Tell me everything I need to know," you say, and you mean it. You still feel as if your body is on ice.
(Later, over drinks, he tells you that somewhere along the line, they made a new you. A replacement in case you didn't wake up.
"She's a beauty," he smirks, taking a swig from his whiskey, and you feel vaguely sick to your stomach.)
002.
(They might have taken your innocence, but they can't take your fucking alcohol.)
Sure you started young, but that's not your fault, is it, when they took your mother, when they're the ones who killed her? It's only right that you would want revenge.
So revenge you took.
It's not your fault - they have taken everything from you. Everything. Your mother and your childhood and in the very back of your head, something screams out to be noticed, shrieks that somewhere along the line, they've somehow taken a life from you as well. You'd believe it.
A spy, they had said. Who better a spy than the tiny human girl from the slums? And maybe you owe them that. Maybe you should repay them for the opportunity. After all, it was all the times you spied for the Batterwitch herself, in your own home, tattling about the carapaces you considered your very own family, that broke your heart enough to make it numb. That gave you the idea that you could your skills to spy against her, too.
No puny human chick is gonna be smart enough to know how to double-cross, right?
So yeah, maybe you're only eighteen, maybe you don a skintight catsuit and fight drones ten times your size and drink like a sailor, but you're a damn good spy and your mother - your mother would be proud.
(Spying and drinking are both old habits by now. You couldn't be trusted to quit either one.)
003.
Something in your genes is very, very wrong.
You have tried so hard to control it. You have. But every time, every time, it builds and builds inside you, breaks you, tears at your chest until you're gone and something hideous has taken your place.
Until she died, your grandma called it Lord English.
"Careful now," she would say when you became angry, shaking and red-faced and on the edge of something awful, and she would kneel down and press her forehead to your own, "we don't want that nasty Lord taking over, do we? We've got adventures to go on!"
Now that's she's gone, the mere memory is enough to boil your blood. To cloud your mind, send you to nothing and nowhere, while a horrific creature you can never know controls your body and mind.
I am a monster, you think helplessly, banging your head against cave walls, throwing stones into lakes with as much force as you can. You can't kill yourself, and you can't kill him. You've tried. I am no better than the creatures I hunt for sport.
You live alone on an island, and anger is enough to turn you into someone - something - whose reflection you see with your eyes in clear waters.
A monster is a monster, no matter who's inside.
004.
Your heart is broken, so you make yourself a new one.
All it takes is one too many fights with a drone - you notice you're having trouble breathing, and the next you know you're having a heart attack.
Applied electric shock. A new, experimental weapon system, you're sure - it's got bugs. You are not immediately dead, but you are most definitely dying, so you've got to act fast.
"Hey Auto?" you say, words coming harder, slower than they should as you stumble back towards your home. "Get me my supplies ready. I've got something to make."
In your room, your work. And work. And work. For hours you toil, breath coming at more and more a cost, your responder checking in with your stats at regular intervals.
Keep calm, you think. If you're not calm your heart will beat itself to death.
And so you are calm.
And calm.
And calm.
Until finally, finally your work is done. You try to heave a sigh of relief, and your chest nearly caves in on itself from pain.
Frantic, you grab a scalpel, bite down hard on your bottom lip, and cut into your chest, trying desperately not to scream and there's blood oh, god, there's blood, and your heart is beating too fast and you're dying with wires everywhere sticking out of your skin falling off your desk metal in your heart and -
You're alive.
There's a fucking hunk of metal sticking out of your chest, keeping the electricity out, and you can never take it out now, but you're alive.
You slump down in your chair, eyes shut, breathing heavy, and wonder why you don't get paid for this shit.
005.
As grublings, you had no differences.
That's a lie, of course - you had your differences, like anyone does, but they were not extraordinary, as they are now.
Your father always favored you, and that was no secret. Everyone in the kingdom knew, from the moment you were born, that Karkat Vantas would become king someday. That you would serve under Her Imperious Condescension and do only her glorious work. (Not that any of that is ever what you wanted to do - that's just what everybody else knew.)
He suffered, your father did, and he was known for his suffering. He was known as the king who sacrificed himself for his people and was brought back to save them from the Reckoning, and for that he was revered. You were revered for sharing his blood.
So too was your brother, but as you aged, things changed, as they tend to do.
Eridan was different, always different. He was not willing to suffer, nor to repent; he was rebellious and distant and feared by citizens.
"W-why should I even try," he would say with that same stutter, always the same stutter, no matter how your father tried to rid him of it, "if I know-w I'll never be king anyw-way?"
And anger would creep into your voice, and you would beg him to try to be good, for you, just for you, and sometimes he would agree.
"For you," he would say, brow furrowed, one hand resting on your shoulder. "Only for you, brother."
You visit Earth sometimes, and sometimes it has changed - once you paid a visit to a young woman with dark hair and eyeglasses, and the next time you visited she was old and gray. Not enough time had passed. Eridan rarely goes with you. He thinks Earth is foolish.
(Once you find out the truth, it hits you like a bag of grubs straight to the face.
"You were a fucking seadweller all along!" you shout, wounded, shocked, and he cries and cries.
"I didn't know," he howls, "I didn't know," gills sprouting from his neck, purple leaking from his eyes, the gashes on his hands.
He is your brother, and yet he never has been.)
006.
You are awake.
Awake is a new thing to be - you have hands and feet, legs and a spleen and knowledge about the world and vague, disconnected memories that seem to belong to you, yet to someone else at the same time.
"Welcome," says an automated voice from nowhere, and it's so loud, you have to clamp your hands over your ears. Stumbling, tripping over your feet, you have nowhere to go and you are so scared and so curious. Movement is new; hearing is new. Thought is older than anything. "You are Clone J11. Jane Crocker."
There is a window.
You run, as much as you can run, press your face up to the glass, splay your fingers out against it. It is pleasantly cool against your skin. You exhale. Breath fogs it up, and something is bubbling inside your throat.
"You have been created as a substitute for Specimin J1," the voice continues. "We will teach you many things here at BC Corp Laboratories. We will teach you how to speak, and how to fend for yourself with practical weapons such as a bow and arrow..."
You have been chosen as a substitute for Specimen J1.
It is your turn to live.
007.
"It's called the Alpha Initiative."
Slick throws the papers down in front of you and you reach out, hesitantly, run a hand over them, flip through.
"It ain't gonna bite," he barks, and you nearly jump out of your chair. Slick laughs, cigar hanging out of his mouth grotesquely. "You wanna know what I'm doing? Here, let me tell you anyway."
He straddles the chair across the table and you resist the urge to roll your eyes.
"I'm taking all these exceptional idiots and puttin' them all together on a team. A team of exceptional idiots, just to help us beat this godforsaken game once and for all. How about it?" He raises an eyebrow.
Gently, you pick up the stack of papers - there might be knives in it, you'd never even know - and flip through it again, fully prepared to say it's the worst idea you've ever heard -
And then you see the photographs.
Roxy Lalonde, says one. Female, eighteen. Spy and assassin; betrayed Condesce.
"Rose," you mutter under your breath, so quiet that you wonder if you said it at all.
It isn't Rose, but it's damn close.
You slam the papers back down immediately, can't bear to look at anyone else who isn't Rose or Jade or Dave but could be. Not yet, anyway.
"I think," you say, taking in a deep breath and nodding slowly, "that this could work."
Slick smiles, a nasty smile, a knowing one.
"Then let's get to playing."